Rio-bound Mitch Larkin disappointed at not breaking 100m backstroke world record

THE world record was out of reach but Mitch Larkin is off to Rio where he believes the benchmark will need to fall in order to win gold in the 100m backstroke.

SWIMMING - Hancock Prospecting 2016 Australian Swimming Championships at Aquatic Centre. Men 100 LC Metre Backstroke - Mitch Larkin on his way to a win. but no World Record. Picture Sarah Reed

THE world record was out of reach but Mitch Larkin is officially off to Rio where he believes the benchmark will need to fall in order to win gold in the 100m backstroke.

The 22-year-old Queenslander made no secret of his ambition to break American Aaron Piersol’s 2009 world record of 51.94secs during this week’s national swimming championships in Adelaide.

And he admitted to a tinge of disappointment at swimming 52.54secs at the official Olympic trials, but having won the final and booked his ticket to a second Games in Brazil he also said there was some relief.

Mitch Larkin will now set his sights on breaking the mark in Rio. Picture: Sarah Reed

“(There is) a little bit (of disappointment), when you sort of freshen up and shave down you want to swim PBs but the main goal was to come here and book my ticket to Rio and we’ll see what happens from there,” Larkin said.

“If I send a signal to them (rivals) or if I don’t it doesn’t really matter, I know myself that I’m capable of swimming fast ... and the same thing I know they are capable of swimming fast.

“Every swim you do at such a quick speed there are always things you can work on and improve, you’re not going to nail everything, it happens so quickly.

“Off the top of my head I don’t think anything went wrong in that swim, my first goal was to make the team and I’ve done that so I couldn’t be happier.

“It’s a pretty quick time, we’ve come a long way in 12 months.”

Josh Beaver finished second in the final but his time of 53.77 missed the required qualifying time for Rio by just 0.38 of a second.

Mitch Larkin failed to break the 100m backstroke world record. Picture: Sarah Reed

Larkin - who won the 100m and 200m backstroke double at last year’s world championships - was outside his PB of 52.11 and believes the Olympic gold medallist in Rio will need to go sub 52 seconds.

“It would be silly not to think under 52, there’s a lot of guys just on that cusp of 52 lows so I think sub 52,” he said.

By winning the final, Larkin secured his spot on the team alongside girlfriend Emily Seebohm who won the women’s 100m backstroke just minutes earlier.

With the 200m backstroke still to come on Monday and Tuesday, Larkin will then sit down with coach Michael Bohl to plot a path to Rio which he hopes will include as much overseas racing as possible.

“We haven’t really spoken about what the plan is after trials, the first thing was to make the team and then we’ll plan until Rio and if I can race as much as I can internationally I’d love to do that,” he said.

“They talk about two types of fitness - training and racing fitness - and sometimes you do a lot of training and lose that racing sharpness or freshness.

“So while it was good to get a good block of training in, swimming at those times I would have liked to have done a couple more times coming in just so it wasn’t so foreign, but we’ll work on that.

[e-mail]

Originally published as Rio-bound Mitch Larkin disappointed at not breaking 100m backstroke world record